


Not a color I couldn't love

by Queerlilfella



Category: Original Work
Genre: But mostly love and fluff, Domestic Violence, F/F, First Love, Fluff, Homophobia, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, chosen family, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24661432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerlilfella/pseuds/Queerlilfella
Summary: This story is about Noah, a young boy growing up in the big City of New York.Living with his unloving, cold father he meets a bunch of people that lighten up his life and show him what love means.It's a story of family, real love, found and chosen family- and it's decidedly queer as fudge.
Kudos: 1





	Not a color I couldn't love

**Author's Note:**

> First of all I hope you're gonna enjoy this.  
> Second of all this is translated from german (which I'm gonna post too) so please excuse any mistakes.  
> Third - and most importantly - this story mentions domestic abuse and at one point there's a bit more than just the mention of violence. If you wanna get the version without the violent part hit me up.

Noahs life reminded him of a Queen song. It was loud, colorful and anything but ordinary. Sometimes, though, it was silent and vulnerable, enough so that Noah was afraid to breathe too loud and break this bubble he was living in. If he felt like that he would sit in a corner, very still, pull his knees to his chest and try to remember all the words to the song that had last been on the radio. Sometimes it took a while for him to calm his fast breathing. One time long enough for his neighbor to find him, huddled together between two trash cans and take him inside to offer him a glass of water and clean the stains off his pants. In that moment Noah didn't know what was worse; Marsha finding him like that or sitting on the ratty sofa in his underpants while breathing in the cold cigarette smoke. While he thought about ways he could explain his long absence to his father, the door to the flat opened, even though you couldn't really close it at this point because of the damaged doorknob. He looked up with big eyes and saw a tall young man enter the room. "Hey Marsha" he said with a quick glance into the small kitchen, where Marsha was standing to clean his pants. "You belong to Marsha?" Noah was speechless, couldn't look away when the young man took off his dressshirt while casually asking the question. Silently he shook his head. The man nodded while he took a T-Shirt that was hanging over the back of a chair. "I'm Tom."

Noah was living in a small apartment in a big city called New York with his father. Every morning his father got up, made breakfast for him and left for work. Ever since Noah could remember they had been living in that apartment. He had a mother, he was sure. He just couldn't remember her. Sometimes his father would bring women back to the apartment after taking them out for dinner to the small restaurant two blocks down the street. When Noah was younger he'd hoped one of these women would be his mother, or at least ready to fill the role. Only a few made it to breakfast with them the next morning.

So Noah got used to life with his dad. His father would make breakfast in the morning, but expect him to go grocery shopping, load and unload the dishwasher and have dinner on the shabby table by the time he got home in the evenings. When he was supposed to get groceries he would leave some money on the table- for Noah all of that was normal. "We're only two people so everyone needs to do their part. And when I'm bringing in the money to afford food and the apartment you can do the rest." He only noticed that things weren't like that in every household after he'd been to the house a boy from his class lived in with his family. The father of the family didn't come home drunk, he helped his wife cook dinner and drove Noah back home in the evening. It was one of the evenings Noah had trouble keeping his breath calm.

After Marsha had helped him that day she offered him to come over whenever he'd like. At first he felt uncomfortable, he was afraid to impose and disrupt their daily life. But after his classmates had noticed his home life wasn't normal by any means he went over more often. Sometimes he simply sat on her sofa in silence, shaking his head when she offered him apple pie or tea. Other days she took him to go grocery shopping. She didn't force him to talk, not like his father or the teachers at school when they tried to ask questions he couldn't understand simply because of the way they formed the question. At her place he could fall asleep huddled on the sofa and would wake up with a scratchy woolen blanket over his shoulders. He wouldn't get a pitiful look when his pants were ripped at the knees but half an hour where he would have to stare at his pale knobby knees before he could put the freshly sewed pants back on. Noah preferred to go to Marsha's after school over one of his classmates places. He felt like an outsider there, different. At Marsha's place it didn't matter where he came from, how he lived or how good his grades were. He felt like any other schoolboy in New York there. She helped him with his homework, and if she didn't have the time to do so Tom or one of the other boys that seemed to live with Marsha helped him instead.

The boys were Noahs heroes. They were tall, strong, some of them just as black as Marsha, with tousled curly hair. Some of them were regulars at her place, like Tom was. But no matter how many boys there were, Marsha never really complained. She listened to every single one of her boys, her door was always open for them. Some of the boys apparently lived with Marsha, others came over to do laundry, eat some dinner under Marsha's stern look or pick something up. There were days where they would come over to sleep on her sofa for a couple hours or talk to her, about what- he never knew. Only that the chats often ended with teary eyes and a long hug from Marsha. Marsha gave the best hugs.

Tom had been Noahs favorite from the beginning. The other boys were nice too, that was out of question, but Tom was different. Maybe it was because of their first meeting, that he hadn't treated Noah like the fearful little boy in his underwear who was sitting in a foreign living room and didn't know what to expect. With him he felt like he had a big brother, a protector that would still pull his earlobe when he caught him picking his nose. Sometimes he took him to the park to play soccer or catch when he had the time- some days he would even buy him a hotdog or even ice cream. (Which Marsha never knew about.) After those afternoons Noah usually fell asleep on Marsha's sofa.

One evening he woke up to Marsha's front door banging against the wall. There was no woolen blanket around his shoulders but bruised ribs and wrists. When he saw Marsha or the boys in the hallway afterwards he looked at the floor in shame, pulled his sleeves further down and hastily carried on. Noahs father didn't have the time for senseless games. Noah had given up on trying to explain why he needed Marsha, why he needed to be with her to manage his homework. But when his breath left his lungs too fast now he didn't need the songs from the radio but instead imagined himself sitting at Marsha's kitchen table, watching the embers of her thin cigarette die, the way she cut carrots and peeled potatoes. 

But those thoughts passed too, because too soon he had forgotten the melodies Marsha hummed to herself while she worked or checked his homework. Instead he went back to spending cold nights under the loveless care of his father who came home from work drunk more, and less in the company of women.  
Some evenings Noah spend hours in the kitchen, watching the food go cold while he waited for his father to come home. Only to be crouching under his blanket later, trying to get his too loud, rasping breath under control.

Noahs father wasn't a bad father, that's what he kept telling himself. After all he had food to eat, clothing and a roof over his head. But when he was cowering behind the front door of his small apartment when he was alone in the afternoons and listened to the sounds in the hallway he felt himself longing for the loving reprimand Marsha gave, the hugs when he came back from school and tears cleared paths on his dirty cheeks. That was the kind of love he couldn't get from his father.

At school Noah only had a couple of friends. Most kids his age made fun of him because of his shabby clothes, because his father didn't make him lunch and his sneakers looked like three generations before him had worn them. The friends he had weren't the kind he would take home, or that would take him to their home. They were living at the other end of the city, had parents who took care of them- a different life.  
When Noah made his way home one day after a long day of getting teased at school, books in his arms, he stumbled over his shoelaces. While he was getting up, rubbing his scraped hands over his jeans and thought about ways to tell his father about the dirty books, a dark figure approached him. Noah looked up- it was one of Marshas boys. "You alright, Noah?" he recognized the voice as Tom's, the boy he missed the most out of Marshas boys. Hastily he nodded, pulled his books tight against his chest, not daring to look Tom in the eye.

Tom looked at Noah in silence, who looked at the floor. "Have you been over to Marshas the past weeks?" Tom finally asked. The only reaction to that was a shaken head. "She misses you, you know. Sometimes she pours tea and puts extra sugar in a cup for you." Noah was still looking at the floor. "Marsha would be happy if you were to come over again." "Me too." Hadn't Tom looked at Noah, he would've dismissed the whisper as imagination. Before Tom could react Noahs thin back disappeared between the busy pedestrians in this hurried city. 'That boy' he thought, shaking his head. Sighing he continued his way. He had a long night ahead of him.

After getting home Noah tried to wash the stains out of his pants in the sink, the way he had seen Marsha do it so many times. His fathers reaction frightened him already and caused a bead of sweat to roll down his face and his breath to quicken. "Stop crying!" He heard his father say "You're never gonna be a man like that!" He looked at the jeans in his hands dejectedly.

The pants dripped onto the well worn wooden floor on his way down to Marshas apartment. He was only wearing underpants, but his shame and the panic kept him warm. Trembling hands knocked on the wooden door. The bell was broken. In the silent hallway the knock sounded like a dying butterfly. While Noah was waiting a baby had begun crying in the background. He knocked again, using all his force. Steps neared the door from the inside. It was one of Marshas boys opening the door. Jamie? Jonathan? He only took a quick look at Noah with his big eyes and soaking wet pants in his hands and guided him inside. There, on the creaking Sofa was Marsha, a crying boy in her arms whose head was buried in her shoulder. Noah felt like an imposter. That situation was too private, too sensitive for him to burst in unannounced and in underwear. He already wanted to leave when he saw the way Marshas eyes lit up when she saw him. "John here is going to help you" she promised with a wink that promised tea with extra sugar before she turned back to the boy in her arms and whispered something in his ear. "John" he repeated mentally.

Noah followed John into the kitchen. He helped him onto a stool and showed him how to get the stains out of the fabric. Amazed Noah watched the stains disappear one by one. "Wow." It was the first thing he'd said since he had set foot into the apartment. John grinned a conspiratorial smile, then motioned for Noah to follow him into the bathroom, where he pulled a hairdryer out of a shelf and put it in Noahs hand. "Am I supposed to blow it dry...?" John simply nodded. So Noah started using the hairdryer to dry the pants. "JOHN!!!" he heard after a couple of seconds. "How many times do I have to tell you-" The door to the bathroom opened. Marsha saw Noah holding the dryer in one hand, looking like a drowned puppy. Marsha saw John holding the still soaking pants, a mischievous smile with zero guilt playing around his lips. She ruffled Noahs hair for a second before pulling Johns ear to guide him out of the bathroom. "Take care of your brother! And please make a cup of tea for everyone." she scolded him before stepping back into the bathroom, where Noah still held onto the hairdryer. Ashamed, he put it on the edge of the tub. "It's nice to have you here" Marsha whispered while she hugged him.  
He took a deep breath in and out.

After that things didn't suddenly go well. Quite the opposite. Everything got way worse first. Noahs father wasn't content with the dinner Noah had cooked that evening. Or he was angry. Noah never asked why. He knew he would know early enough just how angry his father would be that evening. But nothing could have ever prepared him for the day his father lost his job.

Every day after school Noah hurried home. He wanted to go grocery shopping, do the laundry - Marsha had shown him how to correctly fill the machine - and then go downstairs where Marsha or one of her boys would help him with his homework. He still had problems putting the words, which seemed to wander in front of his eyes, into sentences he could understand. Marsha didn't always have the time. Some days one or multiple boys would come over with a heavy heart or a bloody nose, needed her hug or her comforting words just like, if not more than Noah. But simply being able to sit at the table and hear soft words spoken in the background made it easier to concentrate on his exercises.

Noah hurried home the day it happened. Once again he'd been teased all day at school, hadn't been able to hold back tears. He wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. While he was walking down the hallway towards his fathers apartment he mentally repeated the homework he had due until tomorrow. The notebook he usually noted his homework in had vanished in the depths of a puddle in a New York side alley. The door to the apartment was broken. For a short second he thought about getting one of Marshas boys before stepping into the apartment. His father would know immediately when someone else stepped foot into the apartment though. How exactly he knew was a riddle to Noah. So Noah set down his books before carefully entering the apartment.  
A bomb might as well have exploded in the living room. The small dining table was the only thing left whole in the room. The sofa was turned over, the TV lay broken between parts of the sparse shelf. The chair, which had been whole when he left for school seemed to have been thrown against the wall multiple times, considering there was a hole the size of Noahs head. He breathed in sharply. His father would never forgive him for that. Breathing fast he took another step into the apartment. One look told him that neither his favorite mug nor the few pictures he had left of his childhood had been spared. On his way to the kitchen he stepped onto a piece of wood that splintered under his foot. "Is that you, boy?" he heard his father call from the bedroom. Noah froze. What had his father come home at this time of the day? "Yes." he called back, voice shaking. His father came into the room, steps insecure. With every shard breaking under his feet Noahs heart cramped more and more. As soon as his father had entered the room everything happened too fast.

Noah tried to duck, but his drunk father struck him with surprising precision. "You should've stayed away" his father said in a nearly apologetic voice before hitting him again. This time Noah couldn't hold back a shrill yell. He tasted blood. He'd probably bitten his tongue too hard. The next hit felled him like a rotten tree. A kick. At some point he stopped counting them.

After his father seemed to have enough he sat down next to his son. He pulled him into his lap like he wanted to comfort him. Noah whimpered, breathing was even harder than it usually was, his ribs hurt when he tried to draw breath. How was he supposed to take another day with his father? The father that seemed to love him less with every evening he came home drunk. "Leave me alone!" he finally coughed. That seemed to break his father out of his unusually loving behavior. He pushed Noah away from himself like he'd burned him. "You!" he spit out, voice once more full of hate. Before he could say anything else, a few men came running into the apartment, followed by Marsha.  
The men dragged his father away from him while Marsha rushed over to him immediately. "Oh god, oh god,..." was all he heard. She scanned him for injuries, asked where he hurt. He tried to calm her with a smile. When her eyes widened he remembered the taste of blood in his mouth. He probably looked like an actor out of a haunted house, her own personal nightmare. Marsha dragged him out of the destroyed apartment with a loving certainty, mumbling about running baths, bruises, and apple pie. The last thing he saw of his father was him being pinned onto the table by Tom, the rage on Toms face.  
He was ashamed of the relief he felt seeing that.

From this day on Noah started really feeling Marshas strength. He'd experienced her soft, comforting, helping. Now he felt the fire she held. Every morning he woke up in the bunk bed in the room the boys living in Marshas apartment shared his heart wouldn't feel like it would beat out of his chest every moment. Instead it felt like it was finally finding a rhythm that didn't just make it capable of fear but also of love. On those mornings he took a deep breath, simply to remind himself on how easy it could be to do so.

When he entered the kitchen in the mornings in his pyjama with messy locks Marsha smiled at him and gave him breakfast. No matter what'd happened the night before or how long she'd been awake, Marsha always had an open ear for him. Some mornings she came tiptoeing into the room, woke him softly, put a finger to her lips and smiled at the other boys which had usually come back home a couple hours earlier. Then Noah knew the night before had been hard for the boys and snatched his clothes and backpack so he wouldn't have to go back into the room before going to school.  
That repeated itself for some time before curiosity got the best of Noah. "Marsha, why are the boys coming back home that late?" he asked while eating his cereal. "Don't they have to go to school?" When he didn't get an answer he looked up. Marsha was standing next to the stove and watched the eggs burn in the pan.

That was the part of the story where Noahs life got loud and colorful. The part where love was no longer just a word used in english class but something to be lived freely. In some ways it was like a whole new world for Noah. After Marsha threw the burned eggs away and sat down at the table to explain what the boys going in and out at her house did to earn their money Noah got even more curious. Men that went to bars in the evenings to dress in womens clothes and dance? Men that, quite similar to the women Noahs father had come home with some nights, got paid for sex? Men that had been born in womens bodies, presenting daring costumes in so-called ballrooms? He'd never gotten insight in lives like the people around him lead it. Marsha had explained that not all boys were accepted for who they were by the people around them but got hit and spit on much like he had. That she knew how they felt, the young men living on the streets, selling their bodies night after night for a piece of bread and a body to keep them warm. And that those were the reasons she gave those boys a home to come to. A place that gave them acceptance and comfort. That gave warmth without claiming dignity.

She told him about the illness some of the men had. That they would die because of it, like too many men and women had before, because no one was interested in developing a cure for faggots, trannies and whores. That she would die of that illness too, one day.

It was like a new door had opened for him. Noah had gotten a new sight for the daily life around him. He saw colorful gowns being sewn, medicine being distributed, , money counted and scratches, bruises and male faces being covered by make-up.

Shortly before Christmas he was allowed to go to a ballroom. He was accompanying the boys that evening, watched them apply each others make-up and slip into costumes whose birth he'd watched on Marshas kitchen table- fantastic clothing in vibrant colors, skirts, ruffles, glitter and jackets...Tom pushed Noahs lower jaw up with a wink.

Walking back in the early morning hours through the cold streets of New York he could barely believe his luck. Silently he followed the euphoric group, shining eyes followed polished nails, watched their mouths with smeared lipstick and glitter in their hair. His gaze stopped at the trophy they had won.  
Tom put his arm around Noah. "Did you like it?" Noah just nodded silently, still not knowing how to articulate the feelings that seemed to drown him. He looked up at Tom with a shy smile.  
In that moment he finally knew what having a family felt like.

Later, he would always remember his first Christmas with Marsha after freshly moving in. Even clearer than Christmas day he remembered the days leading up to it. Christmas cookies and ginger bread houses, eggnog and the clacking of Marshas knitting needles while she worked on socks, scarves and sweaters. Noah had never been as exited for Christmas as he had been that year. Lying in bed he would count the days till Christmas, when he was sitting over his homework in the evenings and was bored he would watch Marsha sitting on the sofa, eyes nearly closed while her needles kept a steady rhythm before slowing down and nearly stopping. He would try to hold the giggles in when her head dared to fall onto her chest and stare back onto his exercises when she woke up and looked at him.  
And when she would walk through the kitchen later she'd lightly knock him on the head and tell him to concentrate back onto his homework or she would make him.  
When he did have trouble understanding, when the words kept dancing in front of his eyes she would sit down next to him and let him read it aloud to her, letter by letter.  
Some days he'd fall asleep over his homework to the sound of knitting needles and wake up in his bed. He never got behind who carried him to bed. He never asked.

On Christmas morning Noah woke up to dull grey morning light. Trough the bars of his bunk bed he could watch the snowstorm in the streets of New York. He saw people hastily vanish through their front doors, wrapped up in scarves and thick jackets, gifts packed in colorful packing paper under their arms. It was hectic, but the snow seemed to mute everything. He pulled his blanket back over himself with a smile. It was Christmas. A couple months prior he couldn't have imagined the way he would spend Christmas that year. But here he was, in a room with eight boys that had found a shelter and family here just like he had.

A couple hours later he was sitting in the living room with Marsha, the boys and everyone who was celebrating christmas with them, a cup of hot chocolate in his hand and cuddled into Marshas infamous knitted blanket. Looking around, seeing people exchange small gifts and passing around a plate with cookies and eyes shining in the fairy lights that seemed to hide the dark rings under their eyes from years of long nights, he felt loved.

It was that kind of love and family that he experienced over the holidays, hidden from the hateful, cold world that made him forget what was waiting for him at school.

New Years Eve had been great, glitter all around him, in the faces of the men and women around him, kissing and rubbing each others bodies against each other uninhibited while dancing, in the garlands still hanging in Marshas apartment, leftover from christmas, on the clothes "his" boys wore while they were writhing themselves on the cold pole and danced, as well as the New York sky, which seemed to disappear into a fog a couple minutes after midnight and stole his breath for the first time in a long time. Marsha put her arm around him, pushing him deep into her side while they watched the fireworks and the happenings on the street. It was a magical moment that seemed to take place in a bubble outside his real life. With gleaming eyes he thought about the things he had lost in the past year, what he had gained, and what the new year would bring him. For a second he had a hard time breathing. Until he felt Marshas arm around himself and remembered- he wouldn't be alone this year.

When it was time to return to school he realized that however changed his life might be, it was still worlds apart from the lifes his classmates led. They didn't want to hear about men wearing make-up and dancing at night to earn their money. They weren't impressed by Noah knowing how to sew a pair of pants out of a piece of fabric. They wanted to compare the presents their families had bought them, measure themselves with something that sure wasn't love.

They didn't care that he had the family he had wished for all his life now. They didn't want to hear about all of that, after all he was still the boy they would bully, shove into the mushy snow because he was smaller and weaker than they were. But when tears were running down his face because his knee had banged against his jaw so hard he'd seen stars for a second, he cared just as little as they did. Because he knew at home someone would wait for him with a cup of tea, a scratchy woolen blanket and a story about the glitter of the ballroom the time Jesse had worn a wedding dress (and how he'd looked so stunning one or the other gentleman would've really liked to show him just how amazing they thought he looked). His way home was only half as bad as it had been so many times during the past year.

The new year had started off well, really. He didn't have problems at school, his classmates only found him half as interesting ever since a new kid joined his class, Marsha was doing well and the boys had less problems finding work away from the streets.  
Though it didn't take long for one of the boys to get home from his job at the diner with a shiner and scraped knuckles. He'd been recognized by another, white, young man, who apparently had seen it as shameful to be served by a gay black man. So he'd tried to beat the "faggot" out of the diner. It was truly a shame the white guy hadn't grown up on the streets, that way he'd have had a slight chance against the black man from the ghetto who was nearly two heads taller than he was.

Noah spend the afternoon silently cowering in the corner of the sofa, thoughts swirling through his head. Memories. Of the day his father had come home drunk and stumbled over his shoes in the hallway. Of the day he'd forgotten to cook dinner. Of the day his father had lost his work. Suddenly he had a hard time breathing. What if, one day, he would be the one working in the diner and his father would be the white man beating him out of the diner? What if tomorrow he would wake up to a banging door and flying fists because his father was there to pick him up? Silent tears ran over his face while he watched Marsha take care of the boy.  
And the year had started that well.

A couple days later Tom took Noah to the park.  
Self defense, Marsha had told him. The trees were still covered with snow, there were snowmen standing on the grass and a bit behind that a couple kids were having a snowball fight. They started slowly, defending against blows, dodging, getting out of a hold. The more time passed, the more fun he started to have, didn't get a dull feeling in his stomach at the thought of having to go to the park with Tom. And he got better. By the time the snow had melted and the first flowers had found their way through the grass he was able to actually wrangle with Tom.

Noah had fun sparring and fighting, but after some time he noticed his heart being somewhere else. At night he was dreaming of long dresses, of colorful robes and Kimonos with shrill designs. He dreamt of men with long legs in skirts and dresshirts, of women in suits and people whose beauty seemed to go above the gender binary. When Marsha finally showed him how to use the small sewing machine she kept under her bed his heart seemed to beat out of his chest. From this day on you would find him behind that machine in every free minute he had- designing dresses for the ballroom, mending the boys clothes. Until the day a neighbor offered to pay a couple dollars to shorten a few of her dresses.

Because this is where this story really starts.

For years Noah spend his afternoons at Marshas kitchen table in his own little tailors shop, mending, repairing and designing clothes. He wanted to sew after High School, but schools were expensive and he knew too well his father wasn't paying aliments. So he saved every dollar he earned with the little sewing machine.

Over the years Marsha kept getting worse. The sickness had broken out in her body and Noah knew she would follow the boys she had lost to the sickness soon. It still pained him to see how it got harder for her to get up every day.  
That there would only be an anonymous grave in the most hopeless part of the New York graveyard waiting for her.  
He made it his task to take care of her the way she had all those years. Some days he could all but take a wistful look at the sewing machine, thinking of his savings that were still waiting to be picked up, while he was sitting next to Marshas bed and reading to her. He knew he had to keep the apartment after her death since there were so many young people on the streets of New York that needed an angel like he'd been send through Marsha.

The days Tom, who'd moved out some time back, came over still were a ray of hope for Noah. Even though he would finish school and take over the apartment in the summer, Tom still was his older brother who'd shown him how to defend himself, how to use a condom and how to apply lipstick so it didn't smear when you were kissing someone. With Tom he could talk about everything he never talked about with Marsha: friends, sexuality, the cold world waiting outside the door, this big foreign part of himself he needed to explore and now Marshas condition. Tom knew how close Marsha and Noah were, considering Noah was the boy who ,without doubt, had spent the most time in the small apartment.  
There were evenings where Noah would go out with Tom when Marsha slept and another boy had taken the night shift, just to forget the cold and the smell of death that seemed to waft trough the flat.

It was one of those evenings that Noah met the love of his life. Maybe just this life, but who knew about that. While Noah was wildly dancing with Tom he could see a petite frame in a paper thin satin dress and high heels writhing on top of the bar. Smokey eyes met glittery eye shadow. A breathless smile over a mass of sweating, half naked bodies before Tom pulled Noah outside.

After Marshas death weeks passed with Noah barely leaving the apartment. There was a lot that needed to be organized and discussed. House rules, rent, who slept where, how many more people could the place take in...the list never seemed to end. As soon as Noah seemed to be able to escape the worst of organizing he went grocery shopping, in the small bodega down the block that belonged to Marshas friends. He was comparing the prices of toilet paper when he saw him in the mirror over the door. In the light of the bodega on a dim Saturday evening his skin looked even paler than Noah remembered. Unadorned lips formed a smile that had stolen his breath a few weeks before. Noahs heart seemed to beat out of his chest, his face seemed to glow. Hastily he turned to the door.

Days later they met again, he was knocking at his door, wet from the cold November rain, had heard there was a safe place for people like him. Noah really would've liked to close the door, since the apartment seemed to overflow ever since they had started to take in girls too.  
But how often did fate knock herself.

It took a while for Noah to realize that it was, in fact, love. Maybe it was the day he'd woken up next to him, the morning after one of his girls had to be brought in by two of his boys after her client had wanted to see her penis and had beaten her black and blue over her refusal.  
Maybe it had been the evening Noah had recognized his father on the streets and his breath seemed to stop before he was unable to control it and all he needed to come back to himself was a hug.  
Maybe it had been the day he'd first seen him in a ballroom, writhing in the light of the chandelier in a wedding dress with a veil that seemed to go on for miles, with glowing eyes.  
When he was honest with himself it had been the first day he'd seen him- in a dingy gay bar in the worst part of town where he'd sold his body. Where they'd all been placed by society back then.

Years later, after having to bury the love of his life, Tom and too many of his children too early he told his story for the first time.  
He told them in front of the trans women of color that had started the revolution, in front of drag queens and kings and people who just wanted to be themselves. And seeing glitter, tears, lipstick and rainbows in the crowd before him he knew- everything would be alright.


End file.
